This weekend my mom and I went to check out some model homes in San Ramon. This all happened on a wim. My mom needed to get some stuff from Kaiser and while I sat in the pharmacy I flipped through the April issue of Diablo magazine. There was a blurb about a new housing development in the area that included wine rooms that were designed by someone from Copia (this wine and food place in Napa). So it was intriquing. The houses all started in the $2 million range. We had to see these suckers.

So we went and I was floored. There were only three models but they were the greatest houses I’ve ever seen in my life. And I am not joking about this. Maybe one day I’ll visit a bigger and better home but I don’t need to.

The features in these houses were just awesome. They all had great showers with multiple shower heads. Not just two, but like 7! Can you imagine having water coming at you from seven different locations??

Then there’s the aforementioned wine rooms. Very impressive and I don’t even care about wine. One side of the room is just glass and faces the formal dining room.

In one model the master bath had a huge and deep copper bathtub.

All of the houses had custom closets with the coolest gadgets for a closey I’ve ever seen. There was this mirror that was hidden in the side of a wall of shelves, you pull it out sideways and it would turn to face you. So you can get dressed in the closet and get a full body look at yourself. Each house has a place where you can plug in your iPod so that it plays throughout the house.

The house that I want, that I’m determined to get, has a detached 4 car garage. It has a small guesthouse (Casita). There’s a huge kitchen, plus a prep kitchen (which is larger than my apartment’s kitchen). Ya know for those times when you’ve got a buncha caterers coming in for that huge party you’re throwing, again! The thing that got me at first was the wrap around porch and veranda. Off of the master bedroom there are a trio of french doors that open onto the large veranda. Beautiful. Just beautiful. There’s even more to the house than just this.

I don’t know what I need or how I’m going to get from here to there but I’m going to try. I’m going to get there.

a photo and floorplan of the house

When I was in kindegarten my mom would drive me to school every morning and I would cry as we got closer and closer to the school. I didn’t want to go school. My mom was perplexed she didn’t know why I was so dead set against going. So one day she came with me to class, which made me very happy, and she watched what was going on. She could see that I was extremely bored, and that the vast majority of the kids in the class were operating on a different level than me. When my teacher asked me if I wanted to work out of the cool workbook I said yes and instantly lighted up at the prospect of doing some real, challenging work. After seeing that my mom went into the other kindegarten class down the hall, that class was working on more advanced things, they were reading, learning numbers. So my mom went to the principal and got my class changed. Once I was in the new class, I immediately learned to read and I didn’t dread going to school every day.

I thought about this story last night while I was trying to go to bed. It sprung to mind because I was thinking about my current feelings for my new job. It’s been getting me down lately because I have nothing to do yet, no real tangible tasks that I can do, things that I can look forward to working on the minute I get into the office. I hate having to come in and manufacture some sort of relevant task to do. All of that makes me anxious and irritated (and it doesn’t help that I’m PMSing right now too) and I’m extremely bored. Boredom and Valli don’t mix. So all of that reminded me of Kindegarden and how some things don’t change.

That’s just who I am. I don’t want to go in to work (or school) if I know that there’s nothing to do and that I’m going to be bored out of my gourd. It causes anxiety, all of that uncertainty. And while I know that I can’t help the fact that I have nothing to do I also have this feeling that it’s my fault or responsibilty that I don’t have anything to do. I don’t know what to do with myself. Dreading going into work is the worst feeling and it’s not quite that bad, but it’s been a little bit like that these past few days. I’ve used my usual coping tactics, by just taking things bit by bit.